But on the other hand we are struck with McAfee, and the enterprise version with a paranoid configuration can bog down the faster supercomputer to a leisurely pace.
Back when I had to run Windows at work the anti-virus was the biggest cause of performance problems on my system. It got so bad that I had to get permission from my manager to run without an anti-virus because over a couple of years it had gone from decently fast to impossibly slow solely because of the anti-virus sucking up more and more CPU cycles.
The only people who ever got viruses on their systems were in marketing, and the only thing the anti-virus did for those of us in software development was trash a few machines when it decided that some important Windows file was actually a virus and deleted it so the machine couldn't boot anymore.
Obviously the 5 year old computers in TFA could use an upgrade, but I've found that for my aging workstations, a simple storage upgrade to an SSD would probably be more than enough to increase my productivity. Storage is the new bottleneck, not processing power.
Only if you're continually accessing the disk. I put an SSD in my netbook because we often boot it up, do a bit of web browsing and shut down, and that dramatically reduced boot times but has no effect on anything that isn't disk intensive.
And yet, Best Buy displays as many netbooks as laptops. People are buy them. Margins may be thin, but it is likely that soon tablets and netbooks may make laptops a thing of the past.
Netbooks are too small to type on for long and tablets are a joke for anything that requires typing (yes, you can plug in a keyboard but then you've just built yourself an expensive, crappy laptop). So laptops definitely have a niche.
This seems odd, since Microsoft has been trying to get people into tablets for about 10 years. UMPC/Slates/Etc. I remember this was a keynote item for Bill Gates.
Indeed. I remember Bill Gates holding up a tablet and telling me it was going to be the next big thing back in 2001.
This isn't a technology problem, it's a regulatory and human problem.
How do you 'cut safety margins' on newer reactor designs which don't require active cooling?
And, again, the worst nuclear power accident the world has ever seen was at a reactor run by communists. In the western world where reactors are run by EVIL CORPORATIONS far more people have been killed by coal plants than nuclear.
sorry, but the worst thing that can happen with a wind mill is, is that it hits a frog or something.
People die putting windmills up. People die when windmills fall down or break. People die building the parts for windmills. Windmills kill enough bats and birds that eco-groups would be protesting against them if they weren't flavor of the month for greens.
And yes, windmills are quite a major power generation by now. Just look at Germany for that.
That'll be why they require huge subsidies, then. And why there are normally a few days a year in the UK when they're producing no power at all.
The US also dismantled the last of its IBM 360 mainframes. Why? Because they're obsolete. So is manned "space travel".
A strange thing to say when there are dozens of companies trying to get into the space tourism business. Orbital flight won't be affordable to non-millionaires for years yet, but prices are only going down from here.
Challenger probably would have been a disaster still. An explosion that large is hard to deal with
The ET didn't explode. If it had, there'd have been nothing much left.
But you're right, it would probably still have caused an increase in angle of attack large enough to tear the wings off, the way the ET disintegrating did in this world. Surviving a major launch incident is hard when your spacecraft needs wings to land.
Therefore, it seems some launch vehicle with less emphasis on reusability would likely be a better replacement.
The problem with the shuttle isn't that it's reusable, but that most of it isn't reusable. From what I remember the fastest shuttle turnaround was less than two months, and a week of that was being flown back to KSC from Edwards.
Most of the problems that have delayed shuttle launches have been either due to parts that are replaced every flight (e.g. external tank) or parts that require major refurbishment every flight. If a reusable component has flown a hundred times and has no obvious faults it's probably going to work on the next flight, whereas with an expendable component every flight is the first flight.
It actually looks like they are being very careful with this process. Odds are they are doing it in a way that they could return them to flight if they needed to.
Uh, no. The parts production line was mostly shut down a year or two back; there will be no more external tanks after the currently planned flights, and they'll presumably be laying off shuttle workers before long.
Restarting the program now would be expensive and complex; restarting it in a couple of years would probably cost as much as building a new spacecraft from scratch.
The SSD's are still too pricy, the performance "boost" isn't that impressive.
It is if:
a) you don't need much data on the machine. b) you boot up and shut down a lot.
My netbook only needs a few gigabytes of storage and gets booted and shut down regularly for a few minutes of web browsing, so an SSD is a really good idea.
No, this is a major accident, and the reactor safeties have performed quite well considering the amount of damage sustained.
And ultimately the effect on the Japanese people will probably be negligible when compared to the other damage the earthquake and tsunami caused. It's only plastered across the media because 'evil atoms' are involved.
Chernobyl was run by a government with no concern about 'profit margin', and that lead to the biggest nuclear power disaster in the history of the world. So why do you think the world would be better off if nuclear reactors were run without regard for 'profit margin' (i.e. by governments)?
Back in the real world, reactors run by companies concerned about 'profit margin' have killed far less people than coal power. Even in this case, from what I've read I believe a failed hydro power dam has killed more people than the nuclear reactors which have had to handle a quake and tsunami far larger than anything anyone ever expected.
That rule of thumb fails if said element happens to decay into yet another radioactive isotopes. Like, say, uranium...
Somewhat, though you're not going to get much of that other radioactive isotope if you start with a few grams of something that has a half-life of hundreds of thousands of years.
Oh my God, the protons in your body have a half-life of over 10^30 years!
You, uh, do realise that the longer the half-life the _less_ radioactive something is? Generally speaking, plutonium is more likely to kill you because it's toxic than because it's radioactive (unless someone makes a bomb out of it).
Probably because none of the parties seem to be able to come up with a platform, or slate of candidates that appeals to the majority of voters.
Not a problem in the UK: they've consistently had majority governments with around 20-25% of the votes for years. This time the choices were universally so bad that no party could even get that few people to vote for them.
How exactly does this affect their revenue stream? The exact same content with the exact same commercials is being shown on the iPad as is shown on the TV.
But they could be making you pay twice, once to watch it on the TV and again to watch it on the iPad. The holy grail of media distribution is to be able to charge you every time you access their media anywhere on anything.
Slashdot Mirror
But on the other hand we are struck with McAfee, and the enterprise version with a paranoid configuration can bog down the faster supercomputer to a leisurely pace.
Back when I had to run Windows at work the anti-virus was the biggest cause of performance problems on my system. It got so bad that I had to get permission from my manager to run without an anti-virus because over a couple of years it had gone from decently fast to impossibly slow solely because of the anti-virus sucking up more and more CPU cycles.
The only people who ever got viruses on their systems were in marketing, and the only thing the anti-virus did for those of us in software development was trash a few machines when it decided that some important Windows file was actually a virus and deleted it so the machine couldn't boot anymore.
Obviously the 5 year old computers in TFA could use an upgrade, but I've found that for my aging workstations, a simple storage upgrade to an SSD would probably be more than enough to increase my productivity. Storage is the new bottleneck, not processing power.
Only if you're continually accessing the disk. I put an SSD in my netbook because we often boot it up, do a bit of web browsing and shut down, and that dramatically reduced boot times but has no effect on anything that isn't disk intensive.
And yet, Best Buy displays as many netbooks as laptops. People are buy them. Margins may be thin, but it is likely that soon tablets and netbooks may make laptops a thing of the past.
Netbooks are too small to type on for long and tablets are a joke for anything that requires typing (yes, you can plug in a keyboard but then you've just built yourself an expensive, crappy laptop). So laptops definitely have a niche.
This seems odd, since Microsoft has been trying to get people into tablets for about 10 years. UMPC/Slates/Etc. I remember this was a keynote item for Bill Gates.
Indeed. I remember Bill Gates holding up a tablet and telling me it was going to be the next big thing back in 2001.
Netbooks were killed by the simple fact that I can now get a full-size notebook for $350, so why would I want a DVD-less netbook for the same price?
Because it's half the size and the battery lasts longer. Though with Intel's crappy Atom chipsets perhaps the second part is no longer true.
Of course it's totally a coincidence the Netbook market dies around the same time the iPad was released.
No relation here, no-sir.
Probably not. I've seen plenty of people using netbooks, but I've only ever seen two people using iPads (or some similar tablet).
Then what rights do I need to obtain before writing my own songs?
Didn't they ban that already? Writing your own songs reduces RIAA profits and hence must be illegal.
This isn't a technology problem, it's a regulatory and human problem.
How do you 'cut safety margins' on newer reactor designs which don't require active cooling?
And, again, the worst nuclear power accident the world has ever seen was at a reactor run by communists. In the western world where reactors are run by EVIL CORPORATIONS far more people have been killed by coal plants than nuclear.
sorry, but the worst thing that can happen with a wind mill is, is that it hits a frog or something.
People die putting windmills up. People die when windmills fall down or break. People die building the parts for windmills. Windmills kill enough bats and birds that eco-groups would be protesting against them if they weren't flavor of the month for greens.
And yes, windmills are quite a major power generation by now. Just look at Germany for that.
That'll be why they require huge subsidies, then. And why there are normally a few days a year in the UK when they're producing no power at all.
The US also dismantled the last of its IBM 360 mainframes. Why? Because they're obsolete. So is manned "space travel".
A strange thing to say when there are dozens of companies trying to get into the space tourism business. Orbital flight won't be affordable to non-millionaires for years yet, but prices are only going down from here.
Challenger probably would have been a disaster still. An explosion that large is hard to deal with
The ET didn't explode. If it had, there'd have been nothing much left.
But you're right, it would probably still have caused an increase in angle of attack large enough to tear the wings off, the way the ET disintegrating did in this world. Surviving a major launch incident is hard when your spacecraft needs wings to land.
Therefore, it seems some launch vehicle with less emphasis on reusability would likely be a better replacement.
The problem with the shuttle isn't that it's reusable, but that most of it isn't reusable. From what I remember the fastest shuttle turnaround was less than two months, and a week of that was being flown back to KSC from Edwards.
Most of the problems that have delayed shuttle launches have been either due to parts that are replaced every flight (e.g. external tank) or parts that require major refurbishment every flight. If a reusable component has flown a hundred times and has no obvious faults it's probably going to work on the next flight, whereas with an expendable component every flight is the first flight.
But wouldn't it be cool to turn Discovery into a restaurant for a museum?!?
Didn't the commies do that with one of their retired shuttles?
It actually looks like they are being very careful with this process. Odds are they are doing it in a way that they could return them to flight if they needed to.
Uh, no. The parts production line was mostly shut down a year or two back; there will be no more external tanks after the currently planned flights, and they'll presumably be laying off shuttle workers before long.
Restarting the program now would be expensive and complex; restarting it in a couple of years would probably cost as much as building a new spacecraft from scratch.
It would be nice if I could go down to the Secretary of State / DMV and obtain a digital ID certificate.
Until the government cancelled your ID or required it for everything you do online.
We really, really don't need government-mandated 'Internet passports'.
The SSD's are still too pricy, the performance "boost" isn't that impressive.
It is if:
a) you don't need much data on the machine.
b) you boot up and shut down a lot.
My netbook only needs a few gigabytes of storage and gets booted and shut down regularly for a few minutes of web browsing, so an SSD is a really good idea.
it's nice to see people not only get upset about something once in a while, but to actually vote against it as well.
When was the last time Germany was hit by a tsunami?
No, this is a major accident, and the reactor safeties have performed quite well considering the amount of damage sustained.
And ultimately the effect on the Japanese people will probably be negligible when compared to the other damage the earthquake and tsunami caused. It's only plastered across the media because 'evil atoms' are involved.
Is that supposed to refute what I said?
Chernobyl was run by a government with no concern about 'profit margin', and that lead to the biggest nuclear power disaster in the history of the world. So why do you think the world would be better off if nuclear reactors were run without regard for 'profit margin' (i.e. by governments)?
Back in the real world, reactors run by companies concerned about 'profit margin' have killed far less people than coal power. Even in this case, from what I've read I believe a failed hydro power dam has killed more people than the nuclear reactors which have had to handle a quake and tsunami far larger than anything anyone ever expected.
That rule of thumb fails if said element happens to decay into yet another radioactive isotopes. Like, say, uranium...
Somewhat, though you're not going to get much of that other radioactive isotope if you start with a few grams of something that has a half-life of hundreds of thousands of years.
I'm fine with nuclear power. I'm not fine with nuclear power plants being run by greedy assholes that put the profit margin above the safety margin.
Like Chernobyl?
This is extremely bad
Oh my God, the protons in your body have a half-life of over 10^30 years!
You, uh, do realise that the longer the half-life the _less_ radioactive something is? Generally speaking, plutonium is more likely to kill you because it's toxic than because it's radioactive (unless someone makes a bomb out of it).
Probably because none of the parties seem to be able to come up with a platform, or slate of candidates that appeals to the majority of voters.
Not a problem in the UK: they've consistently had majority governments with around 20-25% of the votes for years. This time the choices were universally so bad that no party could even get that few people to vote for them.
Comodo is a British company, isn't it?
How exactly does this affect their revenue stream? The exact same content with the exact same commercials is being shown on the iPad as is shown on the TV.
But they could be making you pay twice, once to watch it on the TV and again to watch it on the iPad. The holy grail of media distribution is to be able to charge you every time you access their media anywhere on anything.